A new five-year pilot study has shown that lifestyle changes, like an improved diet, exercise, and stress management, may help reverse aging processes at the cellular level.
But as exciting as this finding is, we’re still far from the proverbial fountain of youth.
The study, which now appears in The Lancet Oncology, was conducted by a pair of heavy hitting scientists, namely Dean Ornish — who’s made a career of demonstrating the benefits of comprehensive lifestyle changes in diet, exercise, stress management, and social support — and Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of telomeres and their relation to the aging process.
And indeed, a key assumption of the study pertains to telomere length — the part of the chromosome that affects cellular aging — and its relation to lifestyle factors.
Telomeres appear at the end of chromosomes and provide protection. They’re often compared to how the tips of shoelaces prevent them from fraying. In similar manner, telomeres protect the ends of chromosomes and help them remain stable.
But telomeres get shorter as we age, a contributing factor to cellular aging and decay — a process that we experience as aging.
The length of a person’s telomeres is typically determined by age; shorter lengths are associated with the onset of certain diseases, including cancer, heart disease, obesity, stroke, and diabetes.
Telomeres are not known for growing longer. But this is precisely what the University of California team has observed. And by virtue of this, they believe that they may have stumbled upon a technique that can literally reverse aging at the cellular level — albeit ever so slightly.
The study
Men in the intervention group followed a comprehensive program that involved significant lifestyle changes, including:
- A diet high in plant-based protein, fruits, vegetables, unrefined grains and low in fat and refined carbohydrates
- Moderate aerobic exercise for 30 minutes per day, six days per week
- Stress management activities like yoga-based stretching and meditation
- Attending weekly social support group sessions
The men in the control group had no such lifestyle change.
After five years, the researchers re-measured telomere length — and they were 10% longer for the men who followed the lifestyle changes. Control group participants, on the other hand, experienced a decrease, on average, of 3%. Telomere length was also correlated to adherence.
Read more - http://io9.com/the-first-evidence-that-lifestyle-changes-can-reverse-a-1333609434
Further information and video -
http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/09/108886/lifestyle-changes-may-lengthen-telomeres-measure-cell-aging
Other articles on youth on this blog - http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Youth
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Link to this post - http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/09/healthy-lifestyle-slows-down-aging.html
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